


The Heart Of The House

by Thealmostrhetoricalquestion



Series: Frightening Fall Fic [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Claustrophobia, Creepy, Established Relationship, Haunted Houses, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Skeletons, Week 1: Bad Decisions Were Made
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 19:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20879351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion/pseuds/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion
Summary: When an old acquaintance of Magnus's leaves a house to him upon his death, Alec reluctantly tags along to help clean the place up.That was his first mistake.





	The Heart Of The House

**Author's Note:**

> Absolutely had no idea how to tag this, so if I need to put the rating up, let me know! It ends ambiguously, but in my mind Alec gets out fine, which is why i put the implied character death tag there but not the huge one. More in-depth tags here: mentions of ghosts, creepy things, other character death (but off-screen and not graphic and not even characters we know), some of it could feel claustrophobic? so be careful there, and there are skeletons and hearts, but otherwise it should be okay. Also swearing, but I feel like that's fine at this point. Ta-da! Not as creepy as I wanted it to be!

_Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk. ―Robert Bloch_

“So who’s this guy supposed to be again?” 

Alec stood in a pool of windswept leaves, warming his hands on a paper cup of coffee, and stared dubiously up at the house. 

“I mentioned it once or twice already.” Magnus strolled past him, an overnight bag thrown across his shoulder, and beckoned him up the path. “Do keep up, darling.” 

“I know you mentioned it, but I find it hard to believe someone related to you would live in something like this.” 

'This' being a four-story townhouse that was seconds away from crumbling down. The windows were boarded up, the dark paint was cracked and peeling, and several wilted potted plants guarded the front door. There was a distinct, unkempt aura of despair about the place. 

“Keep up!” Magnus called, swanning straight through the door. 

Begrudgingly, Alec followed him up the path. Wet leaves came to a sloppy end beneath his boots. There was a crisp starchiness to the air, and it whistled through its teeth with every breath. Alec didn’t know why, but the closer he got to the house, the colder he felt. It wasn’t quite winter yet, but with the dead scents of October just beginning to unfurl, it was clearly well on its way. 

“It’s colder in here than it is out there,” Alec complained, once he caught up with Magnus in the kitchen. There was a distinctly metallic taste to the air, and beneath that, the sickly sweet stench of rot. Magnus stopped fiddling with one of the wet, fungus-ridden boards covering the window, and turned with an apologetic grimace. 

“It is a bit chilly. At least it’s only for one night?” 

Alec rolled his eyes, sidestepping a bar stool that seemed to be growing its own cushion. “One minute's more than enough. I didn't even know you had any uncles.”

“Well, more of a mentor than anything else. We aren’t technically related at all, but he was an eccentric Warlock who married a friend of mine, and when she died, I spent a year or two travelling with him.” Magnus stepped smoothly around the island counter, ignoring the dusty vials and bottles of congealed green liquid with professional discretion. “He picked up a few… strange hobbies, and I left him to it. I haven’t seen him in, oh, I’d say seventy years, give or take?”

He was getting used to how vast the space between him and Magnus was, at least in terms of the past, and the years they’d known. But it was still a shock to hear him throw out a number like that. 

“But he still left you this place,” Alec said, shifting his weight and listening to the floorboards wince under his feet. “You know, I don't think he liked you as much as you claim.”

Magnus swatted him ineffectually on his way out of the kitchen, but there was laughter in his voice when he said, “Start on the kitchen cupboards, and I’ll fix up the drawing room. With my magic, we can be done within two days.”

“Then why do I have to start on the kitchen cupboards,” Alec muttered, but he muttered low enough that he went unheard. Sighing, he dropped his coffee on the dirty counter-top, avoiding a puddle of gunge that had crusted at the edges. The vials and tubes were still bubbling away, popping faintly at the joints, but he ignored them the way Magnus had done. He didn't touch magical things. Not since he poked a strange leather pouch in Magnus’s office, looking for a pen, and had two of his fingers sheared off. 

Alec wiggled his hand at the memory. It still hurt in the cold weather, but his fingers were back now. Magnus had locked his office up tightly for two months, and barely looked at him for weeks, even though it was nothing to do with him. 

“Cupboards, Alexander!”

Alec rolled his eyes and got to work. The cupboards were thick with dust and smelled damp, as though something had died in it recently. Dishes were piled up inside, rimmed with green and brown and fluff that broke off when he disturbed. Some of the plates were peppered with rotten bits of food; there had only been a week between the Warlock dying and Magnus finding out, which meant the guy had lived like this. Probably for a long time. Alec gagged, retreated, and helped himself to a pair of gloves from Magnus’s overnight bag. 

It was Magnus that finally got him to stop. He abandoned the trash-bag brimming with cracked china at the first call of his name, finding him frowning in the drawing room. The curtains had been thrown back; tattered and ragged, they hung like ruined flags on a bloody battle-field, but the boards on the windows only let in the merest cracks of light. Dark dust caught in Magnus’s hair and on the shoulders of his jacket. 

“Something wrong? Other than this guy’s relationship with hygiene.” Alec stripped off the gloves and flung them on a moth-eaten armchair. “I don't even want to think about what the bathroom looks like.”

“We have a slight problem,” Magnus said. 

Alec eyed him. “What kind of problem?”

“One that might take more than a night to fix,” Magnus explained, his expression shifting to a more apologetic one when Alec groaned. “My magic won’t work here, and I can only assume it’s because of the wards.”

“It looks like it’s working to me.” Alec gestured at the faint blue glow flickering playfully at the tips of Magnus’s fingers. Magnus hummed and held up his hand, sparks soaring from his fingers. They wove through the air and ghosted across the ragged curtain, but before they could make contact, there was a hissing sound, like a pot boiling over on the stove. The sparks dissipated. 

“Maybe not, then,” Alec allowed. 

Magnus lowered his hand, dissatisfied, and flexed his fingers. “I can still feel my magic, and I can even use it to some extent. But if I try to touch the house, or move anything inside of it, or make contact at all, it has no effect. I can’t even make a portal. It’s very much only a part of me.” He flicked a bit of blue Alec’s way, and he felt it ruffle his hair. Magnus’s mouth quirked in a fond smile, some of his frustration draining away. “And you, too. My uncle was always a very paranoid soul, but it seems as though it got worse after his wife passed away. I’ll have to integrate my magic with the wards and build on top of them, and I’ll need to be present while it happens, or the process won’t work.”

“And we can’t clean this house without magic because this place is a cesspit, and it'll take years,” Alec said, nodding. He threw his head back with an aggrieved sigh, but in truth, he didn't mind too much. It was this or paperwork, and this had Magnus attached to it. “Fine. But you owe me a lot of coffee.”

Magnus stepped closer, surprised and pleased. “You don't have to stay. I know it’s disgusting here, so I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to go home.”

Alec rolled his eyes and kissed him, careful not to touch too much. He felt like he was covered in mould, and he didn't want to pass on any diseases he’d inevitably caught in that kitchen. Magnus drew back with a satisfied smile. 

“We both know I’m not leaving you here.”

“Maybe I just like to hear it.” Magnus tweaked his jacket, smoothing down the collar, and pecked him on the lips one more time. Then he was gone, strolling through the hallways and rambling about chalk and candles, already rubbing his hands as he planned his great magical ritual. It would have to take place in the garden, he said, since it wouldn't work indoors, but it would need to be within the boundary of the house... 

Alec spun in a slow circle, taking in the drawing room as Magnus’s voice grew fainter. It was better if he stayed out of the preparations until Magnus specifically requested his help, but that didn't mean he had to go back to the kitchen, where even the walls had started to decay.

The curtains fluttered, shifting with a ragged moan. Alec whipped around and stared, rooted to the spot, as they billowed wildly. He opened his mouth to call out for Magnus, but a tearing sound cut him off. Rips appeared in the fabric, vast mouths opening wider and wider--the bottom half of the fabric severed entirely, and drifted to the floor, where it lay in a dead heap. The curtains stilled. The room grew quiet, accompanied only by the sound of his own careful breathing. 

Alec shivered in the sudden cold, and backed up towards the door, his brow furrowing. It was probably just a side-effect of Magnus’s magic, but he made a swift exit anyway. He didn't have to go back to the kitchen, but he didn't have to stay here either.

* * *

Alec woke with a sharp start to Magnus looming over him, sleepy-eyed and sheepish. He sucked in a breath, his heart pounding, and sunk back against the bed-sheets.

"You scared the shit out of me."

“I have to go,” Magnus whispered. 

Alec grunted, rolling over in bed and sitting up. The sheets were still stiff and starchy, pushed down to his waist, and dust rose up when he shifted. The place was thick with dust, as they'd discovered when they peeled back the bed-sheets that night and almost clogged their lungs. 

“Wha’? What time s’it?” Alec rubbed his eye, peering at Magnus through the gloom. 

“Around three,” Magnus said, wincing. He was already dressed, kneeling on the bed, his rings shining in the sliver of moonlight visible through a crack in the boards. “I got a call from Catarina, something about meeting her in the hospital.”

“I thought you couldn’t leave because of the magic ritual thing,” Alec said. He sat up a bit straighter, smacking his lips as he tried to wake his tired brain up. “Won’t it mess up the wards?”

“Not if I give you some of my magic,” Magnus said, talking fast and low. “I wouldn’t ask, and if you like we can both leave and just start again tomorrow, but I’ll only be an hour or so. It seems a shame to waste everything we did earlier.”

It did seem a shame, especially as they'd spent hours tiring themselves out to prepare the ritual of the wards, and though Alec didn't quite understand the process or the transfer of magic that left his skin tingling and his chest warm, he did understand how important Magnus’s job was. He was the High Warlock, and he was beloved by most of the Downworlder community. And Alec trusted him, which was enough for him to blindly put his hands out, palms upwards, and mumble something sleepily as blue power sunk into his fingers. Instantly, he felt warmer.

“Thank you, darling,” Magnus said, pushing lightly on his shoulder until Alec lay back with a grunt, eyes already half-closing. He felt a kiss on his forehead and smiled. “I’ll be back as soon as possible. If you hear noises, it’s just the wards settling into place.”

The bed creaked as Magnus climbed off it. 

“You’ll still have your magic?” Alec asked, cracking one eye open again. 

“I have most of it. You have enough to fool the wards for two hours, and I won’t be longer than that.” Another kiss brushed the side of his ear, and the bed creaked again as Magnus leaned back and headed for the stairs. Distantly, Alec heard the door open and shut, before he closed his eyes all the way and fell asleep. 

It didn't feel like very long before the bed was creaking again. Alec smiled against the pillow, still dozing, and pulled his chilly toes further under the sheet. A cold kiss joined the one from earlier on the side of his ear. 

“Is Catarina alright?” Alec slurred.

There was no response, but the bed creaked again. He heard a whisper and turned, rolling over until he was on Magnus’s side of the bed, expecting to feel the weight and heat of a familiar pair of arms, but there was nothing but icy air. He shivered, frowning, and propped himself up on his elbow. He could have sworn he heard--

The bed creaked. Something kissed the back of his neck. 

Alec shot up in bed, cursing as he tripped over the sheets, staggering off the mattress and standing upright. His pulse was like a drum, beating a panicked rhythm in his throat, and he clapped a hand over the back of his neck as he stood still in the middle of the room. The back of his neck was cold, the hairs standing up. 

There was nothing on the bed except a tangled ribbon of sheets, all twisted and entwined. The moonlight had moved further down the room, slicing a bedpost in two and illuminating a dusty quarter of the threadbare rug. 

“Who’s there?” Alec reached for the Seraph blade on the dresser. It felt like a stick of ice in his hands. “Magnus?”

But even if he had been playing a joke, Magnus would have spoken up by now. He wouldn’t have let it go on for this long. Alec wasn’t easily scared, not after all the things he’d seen, the demons he’d fought, but this was more of a feeling of _wrongness._ It didn't have fangs or pincers or a blade. You couldn’t fight a feeling. 

The bed creaked again. This time, a scruffy whisper flitted through the room. He tightened his grip on the Seraph blade, calling out the angel’s name until bright light flooded the room. It lit up the blackened boards nailed over the windows, and the dresser with its mismatched drawers and cluttered surface. It lit up the strange carvings flanking the ash-filled, dusty mantle-piece, and it shone a spotlight on Alec’s boots, stacked neatly at the base of the bed. 

He slipped across the room and slid his feet into the boots, leaning down to fasten the buckles. He grabbed the jumper he’d thrown over the bedpost. As the Seraph blade swept back around in an arc, following the jerky movement of his arm, the light juddered, and Alec caught his breath. 

There, on the mattress, was the imprint of two deep divots, as though someone was kneeling there in the dark. 

“Who’s there?” Alec whispered again. 

The bed creaked. Alec jerked, and sprinted from the room, slamming the door shut behind him. He pressed his shoulder against it to keep it shut, panting. A minute passed. Then another. Slowly, Alec pulled back and stared. His bag was in there, but he refused to go back in until Magnus got back. Heart hammering in his throat, Alec lingered on the landing and watched the door, but no noise came from inside the room. No shadows shifted in the crack beneath the door. He lowered his Seraph blade, the light fading to a gentle glow, but he didn't put it away.

Alec secured the handle with a chair, though he didn't think it would stop whatever had knees and no body to speak of, and then ventured further down the hall. The house was a towering structure with several floors, but in the dark it morphed into a labyrinth of sorts, filled with shadows and creaking obstacles. He brushed his fingers over the wallpaper and pulled on the jumper, shivering in the cold. It seemed to get colder the more he walked.

Eventually, Alec came to a frustrated stop just as the hallway turned sharply for the eighth time. “Where the fuck are the stairs?”

He was sure the house hadn’t been this big in the daylight. He was sure there had been less doors, less portraits on the walls, less corners to turn. The bedroom, he remembered with a hint of unease, had been mere footsteps from the banister that ran along the top of the hallway, before descending down a set of wide carpeted stairs. But he had come out of the bedroom, and found nothing but a long corridor. 

It had been a mistake to let Magnus go alone. Alec passed a hand over his face, trying to calm his shaky breathing. He had faced worse things than a pair of invisible knees and a house that liked to play tricks. But he should have gone with Magnus, said fuck it and started the warding process again tomorrow. It was a stupid decision, to stay here alone in a place that felt wrong and wouldn't even let them move a few curtains about. Magnus’s magic couldn’t affect the house, so there was nothing he could do to find the stairs or make a hole in the wall, or something, anything--

Blue light curled around his hand. Alec inhaled deeply, feeling himself settle slightly. It was like a little piece of Magnus was right there with him, pushing back the cold that hugged him like a second skin. Alec put his Seraph blade away and lifted his hand, letting blue light ghost along the walls. 

Magic never worked the way Alec imagined it would. He had pictured it as a flawless expression of emotion, ruled by math, and to some extent it was. But it was also so far beyond the realm of comprehension it was unbelievable. Magnus had tried to explain it, but Alec never quite understood. He was far too logical, without that creative flair that was second-nature to Magnus, to come up with new magical structures and compounds, to breathe that sort of bright life into the world. Magnus would disagree, of course, but Alec was quite fine with the way he was. There was a pliancy to most of Magnus’s magic that he could adapt to, but in most cases he was lost. 

That didn't mean he couldn’t work around it, in what was probably the most logical way possible. 

“Okay,” Alec said, his hoarse voice echoing down the halls. “Don't suppose you can point me towards the way out, can you?”

The blue light sharpened, and then billowed outwards, narrowing to a point on the ground. Alec grinned. As was usually the case with Magnus, all he had to do was ask. 

He followed the light around the corner, and down a slightly narrower corridor. He ignored the doors either side of him; some of them were smaller than he thought they should be, and some looked as though they had been painted on by a hurried hand, blurred and distorted at the edges. The corridor grew fuzzy the more he squinted in the distance, as though it wasn’t quite finished yet. 

The blue light urged him on. 

The wall stumbled down into a banister, which snaked smoothly down the stairs. Alec sighed harshly in relief and quickened his steps, passing the door to the bedroom; the banister definitely hadn’t been there the first time round. There was no chair propped up against the bedroom door either, but the corridor looked the same. Alec held his breath and reached for the banister, gripping it hard to anchor himself. It was solid. Real. 

Alec took a breath, relaxing. And suddenly there _was_ no air to take, and his knees buckled; Alec grasped at his throat, gasping, but all the air had been sucked out of the corridor, which seemed to shrink around him, contracting until it was a narrow line. He scrambled for the stairs, arms outstretched, but his legs gave way, and an enormous pressure burdened his shoulders, shoving him backwards. The rugs unpeeled from the floor, spirited away down the hall. A grievous loud noise filled the house, like a whirling, moaning wind, but there was no breeze. Alec’s ears popped as his head bent back from the force of the pressure, and he found himself sliding along the hardwood floor, nails scratching at the wallpaper and the skirting board, at anything he could reach as he tried to get his feet up under him, finally staggering upright as a door burst open on his right and he _pitched_ sideways through it--

The door slammed shut. The pressure was gone, easing. Alec collapsed against the shining floorboards with a grunt, gasping for breath that was all around him now. His whole body slumped, and he took deep lungfuls of air, sucked it all down inside him until his throat ached and he was dizzy with oxygen. Then he tore his face away from his arm and forced himself upright, trembling. 

“Shit,” Alec wheezed, coughing slightly. He had no idea what the fuck had just happened, but he had no plans to stick around and find out what else was in store. He felt bruised, black and blue, but there was no blue light in his hands. Whatever magic Magnus had given him had shrunk in on itself, hiding in the deeper parts of him, warming him from his core. Alec didn't blame it. 

He got unsteadily to his feet, shaking himself off, but he couldn’t deny that he was unnerved. His jaw felt tight where he’d unknowingly clenched it, and he rubbed it harshly, feeling the rough scrape of stubble against his palm. Then he paused, his index finger resting against his bottom lip. It was a bad idea, but it was also the only one he had. 

“Can you send a message to Magnus for me?” Alec asked, murmuring the words against his fingers. Light flared there and died again, but not in a particularly negative way. “If you can, somehow, then tell him something’s wrong at the house. Magic or demon or something else, I don't know. Tell him to bring back-up.” Alec swallowed. “Tell him I’m fine, but I need him to hurry. Even if you can't tell him that, I'm sure he'll get the message when he feels you return.”

Perhaps it was a mistake, but Alec also knew it was the only way to make sure that Magnus came back as soon as possible. He wouldn’t linger. He would come straight for Alec, or at the very least send Jace and Izzy, the minute his magic slammed into him. Alec wasn’t helpless, and he wasn’t going to stand around waiting to be rescued, but he _was_ going to sit for a little bit, and anyone that had anything to say could get sucked down a corridor for all he cared. 

The light flared again, caressing his cheek briefly, before vanishing with a snap. Back to Magnus, he imagined. Back to where it belonged. Alec very much wished he could join it. 

He expected the cold to creep back in now that the magic had faded, but it didn't. Instead, sweat beaded instantly on Alec’s temples. He wiped his brow, his skin flushed with heat, and set about dragging off his jumper, swearing viciously. 

“This house needs to make up its fucking mind,” he said, throwing the jumper on a chair. It was a hard-backed chair with a velvet cushion, stained with some sort of unknown substance. There were more in various corners, now that Alec looked, but the room wasn’t very big. Every bit of furniture had been crammed in there; a copper globe that had rusted until it was green in places, a selection of long, spindly candlesticks that stuck up all over the place like dismembered hands, reaching out to him, and bookshelves that lined one wall, hemming it all in. 

But it was the desk in the middle of the room that struck Alec as odd. The place was clearly meant to be a sort of study, as evidenced by the messy papers pinned to the walls and the quills littering the floor, but the desk was clean. No dust. It squeaked when Alec ran a finger over the gleaming, polished surface. 

A vivid red smear caught his eye in the gloom of books and beige and tobacco stains. It was sitting on the desk amongst papers and half-deconstructed pieces of animal skeleton, each one propped up with pins and bits of wood--and no, that wasn’t right. Alec blinked. There was nothing on the desk at all. It was clean and polished and perfectly empty.

Alec blinked again, rubbing his eyes. 

The skeletons were back. They formed a slice of an otter, a section of a bear, and the mangled skull of a lamb, born too soon. They had been taken apart and glued back together again, with bits of tape hanging limply from the smooth, unfriendly bone. When Alec stepped closer, the air above the desk seemed to blur, and suddenly he could see it all. 

He skirted the edge of these grimacing creatures and brushed his fingers against the vivid red smear instead. He touched glass. 

It was a jar. A jar designed to look like nothing more than air until it snagged the close attention of someone in the know, in their world. And Alec was snagged, hook, line, and centre. He dangled on the wire, crouching to peer inside the jar, the fingers of one hand clinging tightly to the edge of the desk. 

The jar was clouded with condensation, but Alec could still see the fleshy, pulpy lump pulsing against the glass. It thumped. And then it thumped again, two in quick succession. 

Alec’s heart beat in tandem.

Suddenly, Alec knew without a doubt what was inside. And he knew what had happened in the corridor, even if part of him denied it incredulously, because _don't be stupid, houses don't breathe._ But a corridor, if you tilted your head and squinted a bit, could be convinced to look a little like a windpipe, and there really was no denying it at all. 

Alec picked up the jar carefully, with the tips of his fingers. It was warm, just like the room was warm. He could feel tiny vibrations as the heart beat against the glass, miraculously still working. Slow, and faintly unsteady, but still working. 

_“Alec!”_

Magnus’s voice rang through the room suddenly, clear as a bell. Crying out in alarm, Alec backed away from the desk, bumping into the chair. He almost dropped the jar, but clung on tightly at the last second, sweaty fingers slipping on the glass.

“Magnus?” Alec spun around wildly, but the room was empty. “I can’t see you.”

_“I’m outside,”_ was the terse, worried response. _“I was on my way back when I got your message. Are you hurt?”_

“No, but don't stay in that corridor,” Alec said, marching suddenly towards the door with intent. “I don't know what the hell’s going on, I think the house might be alive? I don't know, but the corridor--it breathed me in, Magnus, you need to get away from it.”

_“I’m not in the corridor, love. I’m outside the house.”_

Alec stopped, staring at the study door. It melted away before his eyes, the hinges vanishing seamlessly, the wooden panelling submerging the frame until it was nothing but a blank section of wall. 

“Right,” Alec said, quietly. 

_“Isabelle and Jace are here with me. I can’t get through using my magic, but I can throw my voice with it. We’re going to get you out of there, understand?”_ It was odd, how Magnus could sound so worried and so firm at the same time. It was even stranger not to see his face while he spoke, to not know exactly where he was speaking from. _“Understand, Alexander?”_

“Right, I understand.” Alec cleared his throat, clenching his fingers against the jar. “I don't think I can get out of this room, but I’ll look for a way out anyway.”

He walked the length of the room, pulling books from shelves and searching for hinges or handles, but there was nothing but smooth wood. The window was a lost cause; the wooden boards were so thick they wouldn’t break, and when he tried to prise one free, the nail sliced his palm and he gasped, cursing. 

_“What is it?”_ Magnus asked sharply. _“What happened?”_

“I cut my hand.” Alec sucked his palm the way he would with a paper-cut, but the blood tasted thick on his tongue; the cut was too deep, and he’d left his Stele in his bag. “Hang on, I need to wrap it up. It’s no good, Magnus, I can’t see a way out.”

_“We’re still looking for a way in down here. Don't give up on me just yet, Alexander. I’m an incredibly persuasive person.”_

Alec grunted, using his jumper to staunch the flow of blood from his hand. “I don't think that applies to houses.”

_“Now you’re just being negative. Tell me what happened while I was gone.”_

Alec snorted. “Because it’s such a positive experience.” But he launched into the story anyway, recounting the kiss and the cold air, and the creaking of the bed. He explained the dip on the mattress that looked like knees were pressed to it, and he told him, in short, clipped sentences, how the house had moved and morphed around him, how Magnus’s magic had almost lead him to safety until the corridor breathed in. 

Then he spoke, very quietly, about the heart in the jar. 

_“That,”_ Magnus said, in a very strained sort of voice, _“might have been a very good place to start, Alexander. Put the jar down and step away from it, please.”_

Alec put the jar down on the desk, amongst the skeletons, but it was hard to let go. The heart inside it was small, smaller than a grown man’s should be. Alec thought of the dips in the mattress, and Magnus’s story about the man he called an uncle, and the pieces inched further together.

“Your uncle, the man who lived here, the man you knew...” Alec paused, and then soldiered on. “Was his wife a Warlock too?”

_“No, she wasn’t.”_ If Magnus was confused by the conversation, he didn't let on. _“A Mundane, actually. They lived a very happy life together, but it wasn’t a long one, not even by Mundane terms.”_

Alec tapped his fingers against the desk. “How did she die?”

There was a pause, before Magnus said, _“A heart attack. She was quite young, and it was sudden. Have you put the jar down?”_

He had, but it didn't matter. The minute Magnus's voice fell away, the room had started to shake. Alec swore. The room was growing smaller, and Alec had no choice but to cram himself against the desk as the walls shuddered and creaked, crumbling inwards. It grew darker and hotter as the room contracted, and Alec choked out a sound he was crushed inwards. He climbed on top of the desk and knelt in the middle, narrowly avoiding the heart in the jar, watching the walls as they dragged their weary selves towards him. 

The house was tired, he realised. It was a living, breathing house, and it was exhausted. He could hear Magnus calling his name, faster and more panicked, but he held his breath until the room stopped shrinking. When the dust cleared, he was sitting on the desk, in the dark, breathing harshly. The skeletons had scattered all around him, shaken loose from their half-built puzzles. The walls crowded the desk, and it was like a tiny room had been built just to hold Alec. 

_“Alexander, please.”_ Magnus’s voice whispered to life right by his ear. Alec jumped, and released a breath. His heart was racing now, and his knees were already beginning to cramp. _“Please, answer me.”_

“I’m here,” Alec whispered back. He had the distinct feeling that something else was listening. “The room shrunk. Magnus, I think that Warlock was trying to put his wife back together.”

Magnus’s sigh was partly a sob at the sound of Alec's voice, but he drew himself together quickly. _“You sound sure about that, and I won't doubt you, but why? You can’t put a person back together, and she was… she was cremated, Alec.”_

The heart in the jar thumped pathetically. 

“I don't know, okay? I don't know how he could have done it, or if he did it right, but I think he _tried._ I think he tried and it went wrong.” Alec held his breath, but the walls remained standing. The house didn't fight him on this. “There’s a heart in a jar, Magnus. If they did an autopsy, would they have taken her heart out?”

Magnus made a pained noise, and God, Alec wanted to see his face. Hold him, whisper apologies and reassurances. _“Yes, to discover the heart attack. I imagine he could have persuaded the hospital to give it to him. He was very powerful.”_

“And very eccentric, you said,” Alec said, eyeing the bones on the desk. “Where did you say you travelled, when you stayed with him?”

_“I didn't,”_ Magnus said grimly. _“But we went all over the world. He wanted a distraction of sorts. He turned to archaeology, and then to palaeontology, and I left when he started pinning butterflies in glass cases by their wings just to see what made them tick.”_'

Alec nodded shortly. He thought of the knees pressed to the mattress, and glanced at the jar again. There had been a mantle in that room, and beneath it was a fire thick with dark soot. But it didn't have to be soot. 

“I think maybe he tied her to the house somehow. The heart’s hers, I’m sure of it. And that thing on the bed could have been her, or maybe it was him, I don't know.” Alec hunched further as dust fell from the walls, which had pitched in above him to form a tower of brick, blocking him in. “If the heart dies, does the house die?”

_“No, Alexander don't. Whatever you're planning, don't.”_ Magnus’s voice was closer now, and it was almost like he was there with him. _“We’re breaking through the wall downstairs, where the door used to be, so don't do anything stupid. I know what you’re thinking, but we can’t be sure it won’t just take your heart instead, or blow the whole house up.”_

Alec opened his mouth to respond, but found he couldn't. One of the skeletons on the desk was as small as a mouse. It could very well have been a mouse, but the rib cage seemed to be made entirely of finger bones, so Alec couldn’t be sure. When the skeleton opened its mouth though, with a grinding sound that had him gritting his teeth, Alec didn't care what it once was. He could only stare in horror at what it had become.

“Unscrew the lid,” said the mouse-skeleton, scuttling forward ever so slightly. “Unscrew the lid.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Alec said, inching back along the desk until his back hit a wall. He kicked at the skeletons as they came alive, one by one, their jaws snapping and their legs jerking, but it made no difference. Pieces of bone rebounded off the wall and shattered into splinters, but still the skeletons spoke. Their voices were jeering, moaning, ragged rips in the dark. 

“Unscrew the lid,” said one half of a pigs’ jaw. 

“Eat the heart,” said a cracked cat’s skull, with a ghoulish grin that split the bone in two. “She needs a new heart.”

_“Alexander!”_

“Look at this one,” fussed a long, sliver of spine and mangled jawbone, sticky with fluid, as it nudged the outside of the jar. “Barely beating. We need a fresh one, a fresh heart to keep her fresh too.”

Alec heard Izzy call out his name too, faintly, through the realm of bone and wood and magic that encased him, and he felt Jace’s panic and fear through the dulled senses of their bond, but Magnus’s magic was the strongest. It swept over him; _a part of me and you too,_ he had said. It couldn't take him away, but maybe it could keep him warm and safe. 

The jar tipped over sideways and rolled towards him. The lid popped off, and the jar rolled and rolled, like a coin down a drain, until the lump of red flesh flopped wetly against the desk. It was almost black now. It beat quietly, its very last few beats. 

“We promised to keep her alive, just as her love tried to when he lived,” whispered the little mouse-skeleton, no bigger than Alec’s palm. It chattered its teeth near his foot, and he went rigid with fear. “She was right here. She kissed you. She chose you.” The skull scanned him up and down, empty sockets piercing his soul. “Your heart will have to do.”

Outside, through the barest cracks in the crumbling walls, there was a bright, burning flare of blue. But the shrunken hollow of the heart of the house was dark, and Alec didn't see it. Skeletons scuttled all over him, and he felt his heart skip. The limp, tired heart on the desk beat once, twice, and then stopped. 

Alec’s heart beat in tandem.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write the bit where Magnus busts down the walls and scoops Alec up, fries some skeletons and they both burn the house down quite happily, with Jace and Izzy cheering from where they're wrapping Alec in blankets, but it didn't feel like it would fit the fest theme. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoyed it!!
> 
> Did I mis-tag at all? Please let me know if I did, I never usually post stuff like this so I want to be extra careful here. I am happy to add any tags at all!


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